The "believers" who lack character desire "Rachel" only. They grasp the part of God that is attractive to them. They refuse to share in the suffering of Christ. They seek the joy, glory, and honor of the Kingdom of God but they have no intention of enduring patiently the cross Christ gives them. They cast off Leah even though lawfully she is married to them. The presence of Leah is detestable to them and they will not accept it.

The Christians of today embrace Rachel. Leah of the weak eyes is rejected. God has given each Christian a cup of sorrows to drink. The cup of sorrows is a medicine for our lustful self-centeredness. To not drink our medicine to the last drop is to come at last to sickness and death. Those who live in the appetites of the flesh will die spiritually (Romans 8:13).

God knows what He is doing with each of us. We must have our Rachel and we must have our Leah.

God is a God of recompense. God saw that Leah was hated while Rachel was loved. Therefore God opened the womb of Leah and she bore many sons to Jacob. Rachel remained barren.

The reader may recall the story of the rich man and Lazarus. While living in the world the rich man possessed all his heart could desire. The beggar suffered greatly.

The tale of the rich man and Lazarus has to do with the Kingdom principle of compensation. Those who mourn now will be comforted. Those who laugh now will weep later.

Leah was a "mourner" because she was hated by her husband. God comforted Leah with sons causing her to rejoice greatly. Rachel, although Jacob loved her, could find no rest because she had borne no children to Jacob.

From Leah poured the strength of Israel: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah—names inscribed forever on the gates of the new Jerusalem.

Judah, the ruler, always is developed in us through Leah, through that which is abhorrent and painful to us. It only is as we suffer that the spiritual strength to rule with God is created in us. Christians who reject their Leah can never rule with Christ.

Levi, the priest of God, also came through Leah. If we would be a priest, a gate opening into the city of God, we must suffer many things, bearing with patience the seemingly endless irritations and harassments that God sends to test and refine us. The gates are pearls!

And the twelve gates were twelve pearls: every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass. (Revelation 21:21)

Now it was Rachel's turn to mourn. She had no children. But as it is written, "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted" (Matthew 5:4). Joseph, the deliverer of nations, came from Rachel.

One of the greatest mistakes a Christian can make is to reject either Leah or Rachel. Both Leah and Rachel were the lawful wives of Jacob.

To reject Leah, to choose to live "deliciously," to attempt to make our own Paradise on earth, is to prevent our growth in spiritual strength. In so doing we lose the Kingdom because the Kingdom of God is the rule of a perfected royal priesthood over the material realm.

. . . and to the spirits of just [righteous] men made perfect, (Hebrews 12:23)

To be continued.